Rudd, not blood for soothing Gillard

Michelle Grattan and Michael Gordon

PRIME Minister Julia Gillard was forced to put a positive spin on her bad relations with Kevin Rudd when she made her first public comments after the weekend party conference where the tensions between them were obvious.

At a news conference during a visit to a Canberra school she was asked first up: ''do you like Kevin Rudd?''

''Look, Kevin Rudd and I are working together in the interests of the nation,'' she said.

When pressed about why she had left him out of her conference speech, she said she had spoken about what the government had done - and the government had been in office since 2007 ''with Kevin Rudd leading the government for a period of time and now a very valued member of this government.''

Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard during question time last year. Photo: Andrew Meares

''He's an incredibly active Minister for Foreign Affairs.''

Ms Gillard made it clear she will not be urging the release of the secret section of the report on the party by Senator John Faulkner and former premiers Steve Bracks and Bob Carr, even though they have urged its release. Making it public would allow this week's anti-Rudd leak of it to be seen in full context. Ms Gillard said the first she knew of the leak was when she opened the newspaper.

She is also determinedly putting behind her the row over party reform, which has seen many ALP members upset that much of the report was not implemented by the conference.

She said the report, which she ordered after the election, had been dealt with at the conference.

But Senator Faulkner yesterday vowed to continue to fight to make the party more appealing to members. ''I'm sorry that more recommendations of our report were not accepted, but I'll continue to argue as forcefully as I can for their adoption - and continue to be a strong advocate of party reform,'' he said.